Snapchat Ditches Its Identity By Launching Memories

Snapchat has always been about ephemerality. The temporary nature of content on the platform has been a major part of its identity. That’s also part of its appeal for its main audience – young millennials. But Snapchat has just released a new feature that allows users to save and archive their snaps – Memories.

According to the company,

Memories is a new way to save Snaps and Stories on Snapchat. It’s a personal collection of your favorite moments that lives below the Camera screen.

All you have to do to access Memories is “swipe up from the Camera”. Your saved snaps are easily searchable, by entering keywords and you can also use your memories to create new stories from old snaps. Also, you can combine different memories into longer Stories. Also, there’s a new way to send Snaps from Memories to friends or post them to your Story.

However, it’s clear which Snaps are over a day old because they will now “appear with a frame around” them. But not all of your images or videos are backed up on Snapchat. Only those that you use in a Story or add to My Eyes Only will be backed up.

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My Eyes Only is a section within Memories that keeps certain Snaps far from prying eyes. As Snapchat explains in the announcement of the feature,

We realized that Snapchatters want to feel comfortable showing their Memories to friends while they’re hanging out together, so we made it easy to move Snaps and Stories to My Eyes Only — and avoid awkward moments when a friend stumbles upon a Snap meant just for you.

Memories hasn’t been rolled out widely yet, but will be within the next month. It is a major change for Snapchat which has always prized itself for being ephemeral and original. However, it’s clear that pressure for more advertising space on the platform has changed Snapchat’s business strategy.